Kickstarter

With Kimiko's final performance of the Well-Tempered Clavier in the 1901 Arts Club on January 30, 2013, the tour has finished, and the whole project can be declared quite a success. The reviews of the London performance were all very positive, here are some excerpts:

Robert Hugill wrote: "This was an evening of contrasts, because innately Ishizaka seems a very intense, poetic player and her rendering of some of the preludes was intensely moving and not a little romantic. But her command of structure in the fugues went beyond impressive, she was able to bring poetry to the fugues without blurring their structure. Some of the minor key fugues in particular were most glorious in their intensity. She was also open to the other-worldly and mysterious aspects of Bach's art, bringing out the strange intense worlds which some of the fugues go into."

Frances Wilson wrote: "Ms Ishizaka eschewed the pedal throughout, though not through any wish to present a historically authentic performance. Rather, she did not need it: her superior legato technique created some exquisite cantabile playing, especially in the slow movements, while sprightly passagework and lively tempi gave the suggestion of the harpsichord in the rapid movements."

And Susan Moisan wrote: "Ishizaka confidently and with great style demonstrated the beauty of the flow, whilst maintaining the integrity of the separate pieces and captivating her audience so that they responded with a passion for the music that was plain to see and demonstrated by a standing ovation."

What comes next for Kimiko Ishizaka? In September we plan on beginning fundraising for a studio recording of the Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1. The model will be nearly the same as the recently completed Open Goldberg Variations project, with the intention being to place the works into the public domain.

Thank you again for your support. To those of you who attended live concerts, it was wonderful meeting you and seeing you. We hope you enjoy the "Best of the Tour" recording that was made. And here is a video of a recent private performance of the C Major Prelude and Fugue for you to enjoy.

Photo by Janek Singh, from the 1901 Arts Club concert.

On the eve of the final concert in the Well-Tempered Clavier world tour, the CrossEyedPiano blog has posted an interview with Kimiko Ishizaka exploring her early influences and the connection between sports and music.

The inspiration to play piano came to me at the age of four when my mother first placed my tiny hands on the keyboard and pushed my fingers down with hers, thus teaching me the first piece I learned, the Minuet BWV 114 from Anna Magdalena’s Notebook, which at that time we still believed to be a piece by J.S. Bach. I say inspiration, but really it was a decision: a decision, that I would be a pianist, which was probably made before I was born.

Read the rest at CrossEyedPiano.com. Some tickets are still available for Wednesday's concert at the 1901 Arts Club, London.

Five of the six Well Tempered Clavier World Tour 2012 concerts have gone by, and Kimiko Ishizaka has played on three Bösendorfers and two Steinways. The best instruments were in Rockport, MA, and Vienna, Austria. Here is a video with the live performances from those two venues of Kimiko's B-flat Major Fugue, BWV 866. You can hear the difference in the sound, with the Steinway offering a more homogeneous, biting sound, and the Bösendorfer with its warm, 3D voicing. It's a matter of taste, but which do you prefer?

Dear Backers,

we need your help! On Sunday, Sept. 24, Kimiko Ishizaka and I will be presenting at the "Glenn Gould Variations - Dreamers, Renegades, Visionaries", in Toronto, for the celebration of Gould's 80th birthday (Gould died in 1982). Our message revolves around the importance of modern scores and modern score technology and how it can foster musical dialogue on the internet. We need your help demonstrating the point, and all you have to do is listen to Kimiko playing Bach, and tell us how it makes you feel and what things you associate with the music.

Here's how to help:

• Log on to MuseScore.com (get a free account if you don't have one): http://musescore.com/user/login
• Go to http://musescore.com/node/63744 and listen to the music while watching the score. Take note of the measures where you have thoughts, feelings, emotions, observations that you'd like to share.
• Then go to the source score - http://musescore.com/user/9/scores/63635 - and use the annotation tool to add your thoughts, feelings, emotions, observations to the score itself (see the screenshot with instructions below).